Thursday, February 21, 2019

Red River Part 9

SafeKeep

The House of Shadows looked nothing like a church. It was a simple brick building, five stories tall, painted in cheerful blues and reds. The signboard said ‘SAFEKEEP SELF-STORAGE SOLUTIONS’. There were no altars to the Lord and Lady of Shadows in a three-block radius. No iconography, no goons hanging around. A perfectly innocent business.

And yet…

A wall surrounded the building, concrete to waist height, steel bars to eye level. Security cameras watched the entrances and exits. A guardhouse controlled vehicular access, and the guard on duty wore pistols at their hips.

And one more thing.

“The place is warded,” Mustafa reported. “But it’s… odd.”

“How so?” Yamamoto asked.

“The office on the first floor, and the storage areas on the upper floor, are transparent. I can pass in and out through them. But the floor of the office is warded. I think there’s a hidden basement.”

“What kind of ward is it?”

“A complex one. It keeps out intruders on the Aether. If I touch it, I’ll bounce off. In meatspace, if someone enters the warded space, it’ll set off an alarm. And, I think, if the ward goes down, it’ll trigger an alarm too.”

“Can you penetrate the ward?”

“I could try, but it might set off an alarm.”

“Before you do, search for a way to physically access the basement.”

“Roger.”

The six operators of the Black Watch had surrounded the building. Fox and Tan had taken positions in an apartment block opposite SafeKeep. Wood and Mustafa were in an unmarked car in a nearby parking garage. Yamamoto and Connor, ensconced in a black van with tinted windows, were parked three blocks down the road.

During the conversation, Connor was busying studying the target. Seated in the back, he trained a pair of binoculars out the window, staring at the entrance, noting all traffic. Next to him, a suite of phone interceptors and trackers waited for someone to call SafeKeep.

Stakeouts were boring. But Connor understood why he needed to do this, and what he needed to do. His nerves wanted to be in motion, but that would defeat the mission, so he willed himself to remain still. As Yamamoto would say, it was merely the chattering of the monkey mind, and the mind could be mastered. Sometimes, what Yamamoto said was too esoteric for Connor. But he grasped the concept of discipline and self-mastery immediately.

When this was all over, he really should ask Yamamoto the title of the book he recommended.With that note filed away, Connor resumed his task. He dutifully logged every vehicle coming and going from the facility, confirming details with Tan and Fox. When someone called the office, Yamamoto slipped on his headphones, listened intently and took notes. There had been three phone calls so far, all of which were routine enquiries.

“Samurai, Lycan,” Mustafa radioed. “I think I’ve found an access point to the basement.”

“Tell us more,” Yamamoto replied.

“The elevator shaft. The control panel shows buttons for floors one to five, but the shaft itself runs deep underground. I followed the shaft down, and I found a hidden door. A warded door, at that.

“The elevator control panel uses a thumbprint identification system. My guess is that if an Elect presses his thumb against the reader, the lift will automatically descend to the basement.”

“That sounds plausible,” Yamamoto said. “But look around for hidden stairs. I want to see if there’s another access point.”

“Roger that.”

Time crawled past. Connor swapped out with Yamamoto, drank some water, and listened to the police and PSB radio chatter.

It was a war zone out there. STS and ESWAT were still running hard, hitting target after target. Gunfights were springing up all over the city, and the police were scrambling to keep up. Elect were sighted in multiple districts. The New Gods were getting their kill on. Through the window glass, he heard the muffled pops of faraway shots.

“All call signs, Lycan. I’ve found a secondary access.”

“Go ahead,” Yamamoto said.

“On the white side of the building, there’s a mechanical room. Inside the room, on the white side, there’s a storage room. The white side of the storage room conceals a false wall. Behind the wall, there’s a staircase heading down. And the stairs are warded.”

“Any way to access the false wall?”

“Checking now.”

“Lycan, Boomer. How thick is the wall?”

“About half an inch thick. I can’t tell for sure, but I think it’s drywall. I’m seeing some kind of sliding mechanism behind the wall. The wall slides to the left.”

“Nothing. I could keep looking, but if you ask me, the control systems are air-gapped. I’ll have to physically access the elevator control panel before I can work my magic. Likewise, I think there’s some kind of lever or catch inside the storage room.”

“Keep looking. We have time.”

“Roger that. I’ll poke around their security system some more and see if there’s anything I can work with.”

Connor grabbed his bags and checked his kit. This was a low-profile op; there was simply no room for mechanical breaching tools, and he had to leave his heavier explosives behind.

Which wasn’t to say he had nothing to work with. He had a pair of door knocker charges in his pouches. The small shaped charges were just powerful enough to blow in a lock. For more extensive cutting work, he carried breacher strips in his backpack Where explosives were contraindicated, or if they needed to go fast, he had mounted an underbarrel shotgun to his carbine. And finally, every operator carried a breach pen, a small but powerful thermal cutting tool.

More than enough to break into a House of Shadows and say hello.

“Convoy entering SafeKeep. Three vans,” Yamamoto reported.

Connor sat up. That was unusual.

“Copy, I see three vans,” Fox said.

“Lycan, are you ready to go?” Yamamoto asked.

“I’m… Yeah, I’m good.”

Fox rattled off the vans’ license plate numbers. Tan ran them against the local and national databases. Routine, so far, but one question nagged at Yamamoto.

“Already on it,” she said. “I’ve captured vid and photos. Uploading to the database now. Stand by, stand by. The subjects are opening the rear of their vehicles. Can’t see what they’re doing.”Her rifle’s telescopic sight had an integrated camera for occasions like this.“Roger. Break. Farmer, do you have visual?”

“Negative,” Wood replied. “Wait. One guy is running over to grab a trolley.”

“I see Trolley Man,” Fox said. “He’s pushing the trolley to the vans. Stand by. He’s parked the trolley by the vans. The other subjects are unloading crates from the vans and placing them on the trolley. Wooden crates, green storage containers, footlockers… Hey, some of this stuff looks military.”

“Lycan, look inside the boxes.”

“Roger. Wait one.”

“All six subjects are going to the elevator,” Fox said. “Hurry.”

“I’m in the Aether,” Mustafa said. “Peeking in. Stand by… I’m seeing guns. Rifles and shotguns. Boxes of ammo. And… people. Two individuals, one male and one female, stuffed inside a wooden crate. Another two inside a second crate, both males. And… well, they’ve entered the basement.”

“That does not sound good,” Connor said.

“Agreed,” Yamamoto replied.

The Court of Shadows used blood for many rituals. None of them good.

“Samurai, Deadeye. We have a hit. One of the subjects is Jose Luis Gutierrez, one of the sicarios on our list.”

“Gotcha. I’m going to update the TOC. Stand by.”

Yamamoto pulled out his phone and dialed.

“Sir, this is Yamamoto. We have a positive sighting on one Jose Luis Gutierrez, a sicario on our target deck, at the suspected House of Shadows. Gutierrez has five others with him. They were carrying weapons, ammo and four hostages into the House. We need authorization to breach the facility and rescue the hostages. …A what? The hostages— Right. Understood.”

Yamamoto sighed and switched to the radio.

“Samurai here. I’ve updated the boss. He said he’s going to apply for a warrant. We need to send him our reports so he can submit them on to the judge.”

“A warrant?” Connor asked. “What the hell for?”

“We need to keep our ops nice and legal.”

“This is the Court of Shadows we’re talking about. They only have one use for those hostages.”

“We have ‘no proof of imminent danger’,” Yamamoto groused. “Look, we already have a judge on call. The sooner we send in the reports, the sooner we’ll get the warrant.”

Connor grumbled.

Half the team maintained surveillance. The other half prepared their reports. Connor dictated his into his phone, edited the transcript, then bundled it with the other reports and sent them on.“Hope he’s happy now,” Connor said.

Connor just sighed. If he were younger, he would have demanded the team to jump out and hunt down the Elect. But he was older and hopefully wiser now. He knew that if they didn’t comply with the legal process, it’ll come around to bite them in the ass.

“Heads up,” Fox said. “A four-car convey is approaching SafeKeep.”

“I see them,” Yamamoto said.

“The vics are driving in… They’re not parking. They’re pulling up in front of the office. Subjects are jumping out. I count sixteen, one-six, subjects. They all have carbines, body armor, full-face helmets. Eight of them are entering the office. The rest are fanning out and pulling security positions.”

Connor’s eyes widened.

“Deadeye, Boomer. Is it a raid?”

A pair of gunshots cracked in the air.

“They just shot the security guard in the face!” Deadeye reported.

“Did you get images of their faces?” Yamamoto asked.

“Stand by… Negative. They have full-face helmets with tinted goggles and ballistic plates. Break. Two guys have broken away from the security team and are going around the back.”

Helmets with ballistic plates? Shit.

“Boomer here. We have to load up for bear. Swap your ammo for SLAP.”

Saboted Light Armor Penetrators were probably overkill for helmet-mounted plates. But in cases like this, it was better to penetrate too much than to not penetrate at all.

“Lycan, Samurai can you look inside the office?”

“I’ll… Yes.”

“Do it. We need eyes inside.”

“Copy… Ah!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Headache. Exhaustion. I’ll be fine. Looking…”

Connor swapped out his loaded magazine for one filled with SLAP. As he replaced the mags on his plate carrier, Mustafa spoke again.

“There are eight suspects in the office, and six hostages. They’ve gathered the hostages in the corner. One of the suspects is yelling at the hostages. The others are pulling security and tearing up the file cabinets. One guy is plugging his laptop into the manager’s computer.”

“It’s not a robbery, that’s for damn sure,” Connor said.

“The front man grabbed the manager and is shouting into his face. The manager seems scared. The hostages are panicking and—”

Connor scooted into the back, picking up the binoculars. Out the window, he saw all of nothing.“All call signs, this is team Black Watch,” Yamamoto radioed over the guard net. “We’re mounting a stakeout at SafeKeep Self-Storage Solutions. A group of sixteen, one six, gunmen have invaded the site and have taken hostages. Suspects have carbines, body armor, and full-face helmets. Immediate response required. We need backup. Over.”

“Black Watch, TOC. Roger on the hostage situation. Everyone’s tasked out, but we will reroute the moment we have available teams. ETA three-zero mikes.”

“Copy that.”

Six on sixteen were poor odds, even for STS. They’d need backup. The more the merrier. Other STS teams, ESWAT, regular SWAT, hell, even ordinary beat cops would do in a pinch. As Connor framed the thoughts, Yamamoto got on the police net and—

A sharp crack filled the air.

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